


it's our time now (if you want it to be)

by chocobos



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-02
Updated: 2015-03-02
Packaged: 2018-03-16 01:55:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3470090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chocobos/pseuds/chocobos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He doesn't have a plan, never has a plan, has just spent most of his life drifting and hoping that he'll still turn out okay in the end.</p>
<p>(So far, this has yet to fail him.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's our time now (if you want it to be)

**Author's Note:**

> written off the tumblr post 'what about a ‘hey i’m sorry to bother you but i’m trying to convince my friends i’m a sex god so can you please write a fake number on this napkin for me real quick’ au' 
> 
> i hope this is somewhat enjoyable for u guys ;___;
> 
> again this is unbeta'd and is based of the men in the series and not the actual men themselves, not harm meant, etc etc.

 

\---

 

Babe doesn’t expect for it to actually work.

He and his friends are in a bar they’re definitely not old enough to be in just yet, and Babe -- through blind perseverance and sheer dumb luck alone -- has managed to convince them all that he has a disturbing amount of sex. Which would be fine on it’s own, if in a mountain dew-induced caffeine filled haze Babe hadn’t actually promised to show them the process of success in action.

Babe Heffron is still painfully a virgin, and hasn't asked a single person out in his short, pathetic little life.

He can't  _tell_ them that, though, not without sacrificing a huge amount of pride he's not in the business of losing, so he drowns his drink through the straw he's sure the bartender only gave him to make fun of how young he is, and marches his way over to the bar. He really hasn't thought about this much beyond this point. He doesn't have a plan, never has a plan, has just spent most of his life drifting and hoping that he'll still turn out okay in the end.

(So far, this has yet to fail him.)

Babe just hopes whoever there is kind and compassionate enough to think the line of bullshit Babe is spitting at them is too cute to ignore, or that they're just really that dumb to believe it in the first place.

The only other person there is a college-aged guy who looks only a few years older than Babe. He can't really see anything aside from the side of his face, and his profile is way more attractive than it has any right to be.  _Shit_. Of course the only other respectable person in here has to be someone out of his league. The guy is pale and soft-looking, like he didn't grow up here -- Philly itself is a damn war zone; it'll spit you up and chew out all the nice parts of you if you stay around long enough -- and his hair is thick and black and looks like a down blanket. Babe sort of wants to run his fingers through it.

He looks nice enough, though, staring down at the bottom of his glass like it’ll somehow hold all of the answers for him.

“You stare any harder at that and you might break it,” Babe greets, quiet. The guy’s eyes turn to his and he’s struck silent by how deep of a blue they are. His face is even more devastating up close, because from here Babe can see the odd freckle on his face and the little scar just off his lip. This is a colossally horrible decision.

He’s surprised when the guy doesn’t immediately try and get him to leave. Instead, he tilts his head a little, curious, and offers a soft chuckle. It makes the hairs on the back of Babe’s neck stand at attention.

“Kind’a was hopin’ it’d do the trick, anyway,” he answers, and Babe almost falls flat on his ass. He’s not from around here. Which would explain the soft look to him. His accent is hard to place, sounding equal parts southern and french, which is mind-melting.

“I’ve heard using your fists gives great results,” Babe offers, nervous, and is surprised when the guy outright laughs at that.

The guy smiles. “Too bad I don’t wanna get kicked outta this place, then.”

Babe could listen to him talk forever.

 

\---

 

It’s been twenty minutes and the guy hasn’t asked him to leave yet.

Babe hasn’t had this interesting of a conversation with anyone before, much less anyone _this_ attractive. He didn’t think they’d have anything to talk about, and even if they did, that the guy wouldn’t want to talk about it with someone who was so obviously a freshman. 

He talks.

Babe learns that his name is Gene, that he's close to finishing his first year of medical school and how he's never worked more or harder in his life. Gene moved up here at the start of the semester to start med school because it was the one he liked the best, and he's still getting used to how cold it was up here, and how hard it was to find an authentic restaurant that served Southern cuisine.

"I think I know a place," He says. "The diner off of Cornelia is all Southern, Gene."

Gene makes a considering noise. "I'll have to go test it out, make sure it's 'he real deal."

Babe hasn't been able to stop smiling the whole time he's been talking to him, and hopes it doesn't look as manic as it feels. "Hope it works out for ya," he says, warmly and then, because he wants to know everything about Gene, asks, "Where're you from, anyway?"

The other man smiles, wistful and longing and Babe wonders what it cost him to move up here like he did. “Bayou Chene,” he answers, voice gone fond. “Louisiana.”

“Long way from home,” he says, and hopes Gene doesn’t take it the wrong way. Babe doesn’t want to stop talking to him yet.

“Feels like more everyday.”

He tries to imagine what it’d be like not living in Philly anymore, but can’t.

 

\---

 

Babe doesn’t remember his friends until he looks over at their table and they’re all watching him expectantly.

When he turns back to Gene, his eyes are glittering under the lights of the bar, and his mouth is a relaxed, curved line, and it's then that Babe realizes he doesn't want to leave at all. He wants to sit here and talk to Gene for hours, maybe invite him out to that damn diner so he still has an excuse to talk to him. Babe's not used to feeling like this; no one's managed to get under his skin this far in.

He definitely  _does_ want to see Gene again though, but he also wants to keep up the charade with his friends, so he bites on his lip, and blurts, "I've been lyin' to you." Babe's a walking disaster. He almost bolts right out of the bar to save face, because that was not the lead-in he pictured in his head, but something in Gene's face makes him stay.

"Is that so?" There's a half-smile playing at the edges of his lips, like he already knows.

Babe wouldn't be surprised if he did.

“I only came over here ‘cause I had my friends convinced I could get your number,” Babe says, and then adds, “They’re under the impression that I’m the equivalent to sex-jesus.”

He almost expects Gene to be offended, but all he does is grin even wider and take a sip from his glass. “Is that so?” He repeats.

Babe nods. “Yeah. They’re a buncha idiots,” he says, conspiringly, and practically damn beams when Gene laughs.

“But,” Babe pauses. He takes a breath nervously; he can do this. He can totally ask out pretty much the hottest guy he’s ever seen in person. Babe has this in the _bag_. “I also kinda want your number for real.”

The more time that passes the more awkward and rejected Babe feels, and the more he kind of wants to find a large rock and lie under it for the foreseeable future. He nods once, twice, and when figuring that Gene won’t answer because he’s weighing the merit of punching a guy in the face at a bar to just walking away in disgust, he gets up from his chair.

Only, he gets pushed back down.

Gene is still staring at him, but his mouth is curling upwards. “Tryin’ to ask me out on a date?”

“Maybe,” Babe says, slowly, trying out how it tastes in his mouth. “Depends on how mortified I’d be by your answer.”

Babe doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to the richness of Gene’s laugh. Instead of answering, though, he waves the bartender down for a napkin and produces a pen out of nowhere. He wonders if that’s a Doctor-in-Training thing they teach you at med school, and watches as Gene writes something down.

He opens it, reading what it says and he can't hold in the peel of laughter that escapes his throat. His handwriting is a messy chicken-scratch scrawl, stereotypically almost unreadable like any doctor's would be, and it makes Babe smile too wide for his face.

**‘Consider this my number, Heffron’**

Babe looks up at him, still grinning. “Y’know, I’m takin’ this as a yes, then.”

“I was hopin’ you would.” Gene says. Babe has never heard something sound so good in his life.

“I’ll call you sometime," he promises. He squashes down the urge to go home and call him right then, because there are rules when it comes to dating, Babe's sure. He's never  _followed_ them, or had a chance to follow them, but even he knows enough to know that you don't go home and call people right away. 

“Good."

Babe smiles at him one last time, and feels something slot into place.

 

\---

 

Gene pulls him back before he can even make it two feet from the bar.

“I was thinkin’,” He starts. His eyes are dancing mischievously. “That it would really get your friends to believe you if I didn’t make you go home.”

Babe freezes. “What?”

Gene seems considerably less sure now, but says, “Let’s go'ta the diner. The Southern one you were tryin' to woo me with," he starts, and Babe can't even begin to hide his blush. So, Babe _was_ as obvious as he thought he'd been with that. "Now. Your friends will really believe you ‘hen,” but it sounds like an excuse.

He actually wants to spend time with _Babe_.

“That would be a noble sacrifice,” Babe says, once he finally remembers he can speak again. His chest feels so tight he's surprised he's still standing. 

Gene places his hand over Babe’s. “S’not a sacrifice at all.”

His heart skips a beat. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

 

\---

 

The grin on his face when he says that he probably won’t make it home tonight is absolutely shit-eating.

But, it’s nothing compared to the way Gene’s arm feels as it settles over his waist in bed that night, warm and comforting, covering him like a blanket.

 

\---

 

(Gene admits three months into their relationship that he overheard Babe bragging to his friends at the bar about how much exhausting sex he had. Babe flushes bright red, hides his face in Gene's neck, and says, "Well, at least now it's the truth," and manfully and expertly dodges the flick Gene aims for the back of his head.) 

**Author's Note:**

> some fun facts:
> 
> * cornelia is a street that exists in philly but i have no idea if there is actually a diner there that serves southern cuisine. oops.  
> * the title is another fall out boy song; i should probably stop using those
> 
> feel free to follow me (and prompt me) at my tumblr! @punkroe


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